Liquid crystal is liquid at room temperature. Thus, a liquid crystal layer having a laminated structure is typically formed by forming a plurality of members, each having liquid crystal interposed between transparent substrates such as glass or plastic which have transparent electrodes formed on their surfaces, and then laminating the plurality of members together.
However, in the above configuration, the transparent substrates for interposing the liquid crystal therebetween cause parallax, which degrades display characteristics.
In order to reduce the parallax, ultrathin substrates such as plastic films can be used to interpose liquid crystal therebetween. However, this reduces dimensional accuracy of the substrates, which tends to cause misalignment of the liquid crystal layer. Thus, desired colors cannot be displayed in the entire display region.
As a solution to this problem have been studied and developed liquid crystal layers that are formed by laminating together a plurality of layers (hereinafter referred to as CLC-MC layers) each formed by microcapsules (MC) containing cholesteric liquid crystal (CLC). Such a liquid crystal layer having a laminated structure of a plurality of CLC-MC layers can eliminate the transparent substrates in the liquid crystal layer, and thus causes no parallax. Moreover, since the plurality of CLC-MC layers can be formed on a single substrate, no display defect occurs due to the above dimensional accuracy of the substrates.
Such LCD devices having a liquid crystal layer formed by laminating CLC-MC layers are disclosed in, e.g., Non-Patent Document 1, Patent Document 1, and the like. Non-Patent Document 1 and Patent Document 1 describe LCD devices having a liquid crystal layer formed by laminating three CLC-MC layers.
FIG. 11 shows a cross-sectional view of a conventional LCD device 100 having a liquid crystal layer formed by laminating three CLC-MC layers as disclosed in Non-Patent Document 1 and the like.
The LCD device 100 includes a first substrate 101 and a second substrate 102, each formed by a transparent insulting substrate, and a liquid crystal layer having a three-layer (first to third CLC-MC layers 111-113) structure, which is interposed between the first substrate 101 and the second substrate 102. More specifically, a first data electrode 121, the first CLC-MC layer 111, a first selection electrode 131, the second CLC-MC layer 112, a second data electrode 122, the third CLC-MC layer 113, a second selection electrode 132, and the second substrate 102 are sequentially formed in this order on the first substrate 101.